Rebellion (24 page)

“You must’ve guessed that’s why I brought you here and explained the situation, instead of having my men dispose of you.”

I study his face and the wrinkles around his mouth. This is a trick, I know it. This is the man who had every intention of his bomb detonating and ripping me to shreds.

“You don’t need my help. Why didn’t you have them kill me?”

Charlie frowns. “It has never been my intention to kill you, Clementine. I thought I made that clear before. I’m the person who picked you for Extraction, who plucked you out of your decrepit existence and gave you a new one. I chose you for one simple but important reason: because you possess one of the highest intellectual capacities of any individual I’ve ever known. Ever since you were a small child, your brain scans and Promise tests have shown us what all the doctors agree are simply remarkable genes. Not only are you quick-witted and capable of understanding even the highest concepts in terms of mathematics and science, but you are also quick on your feet. And your reaction to the submission serum? Truly extraordinary. I’ve never come across another individual so capable of fighting it in its many forms.”

I don’t believe him. There are plenty of others as smart as me, or smarter.

“I have an allergy, that’s all.”

Charlie lets out a light chuckle. “Dear, you should take my compliments when I give them to you. I don’t hand them out often.”

“It’s hard for me to see the merit in them when I recall how you nearly left me to die the day the bomb went off. You weren’t so quick to save me for my ‘remarkable genes’ then.”

“Do you not recall that I had sent Beechy to rescue you from Karum in order to return you to the Core? I meant for you to survive. It was your misdoings that made you end up on that flight deck. And I admit although I was not in the most forgiving state of mind that day, I assure you I would’ve regretted your death.”

“How comforting. But what, so you’ve decided to forgive me now?”

“I believe now, as I did then, that you are more useful to me alive, at least for the time being. No, I don’t need your help to vanquish Marden’s army. But I want it. I want you to put your intelligence to good use and help my army leaders determine the best course of action. I want you and Beechy, who agreed to help earlier today, to influence your friends to turn their fight against the bigger enemy.” The light from a lamp beneath Charlie’s feet casts eerie shadows under his eyes. “Marden’s fleet is coming. The savages created the acid that’s threatened to batter our planet for decades—can you even imagine the weapons they must have at their disposal by now? They will make our race extinct if we’re unable to hold them off. I assure you, killing me won’t stop them.”

Beechy agreed to help him? He must be subdued. There’s no other explanation.

Charlie might be saying all these pretty things about how he wants to keep me alive, but they don’t apply to anyone else, and they won’t apply to me forever. He is responsible for Oliver’s death, as well as the deaths of thousands and thousands of people in the work camps, all the years he’s been the ruling Developer of Kiel.

When Marden’s army comes, surely Charlie will have no difficulty sacrificing more people for his cause. He meant to do it before, and he will try again until he succeeds.

“Tell me your plan of attack first.” I cross my arms. “I know about the injections you gave all the people in the Crust camp. I was there. You’re going to use them for something, aren’t you?”

“You don’t miss a thing, do you? Yes, the child workers have a role to play, as do we all.”

He doesn’t have to explain the specifics. I know whatever their role is, he doesn’t expect them to survive to the end of the war.

Squeezing the nail tighter in my palm, I set my jaw. “I understand Marden’s army is coming, and I will do my best to fight it. But I’m not going to stop fighting you, and neither will any of the other rebels. You’re no war commander—all you are is someone who murders people for his own means, and feels no regret.” I take a small step forward. “You’re a selfish man who’s afraid of dying. But you will die, and when you’re turning to dust, believe me, the people will cheer. You’ll only be remembered as a tyrant.”

Charlie brings his hand up to rub his temple. “I can’t say I didn’t see this decision coming.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Dean walking over from the door. He’s almost to the steps, and he’s carrying the shackles.

I don’t wait another second—I move toward Charlie and bring my hand up, holding the nail like it’s a knife. I aim at his neck, but he moves both hands to stop me, so I direct my weapon at his arm instead. The sharp point meets his forearm skin through his uniform and draws blood. Charlie barely reacts, which makes me pause.

Before I can make another move, Dean grabs me from behind. I struggle, trying to hurt him with the nail too, but he’s too strong. He rips the nail out of my hand and tosses it on the table beside us, then forces my arms behind my back. I feel a shackle close around one of my wrists, then the other. There’s saliva on my chin, but I can’t wipe it off. All I can do is glare at Charlie.

He remains calm and composed as he removes a small patch from his pocket and tears it open. There’s an antiseptic patch inside, which he uses to wipe the blood off his arm.

“I admire your boldness,” he says. “But next time I’d suggest using a bigger weapon. Now, since you denied my initial request for help, let’s move on to Plan B. You said you’d like to know what was the purpose of the injection administered in the Crust camp? I’d like to show you. Lieutenant Dean, bring her along.”

“Gladly, sir,” Dean says.

Charlie moves around the table and down the steps, heading for the exit from the Core ship bridge. Dean kicks the back of my ankle to make me follow.

22

We take an elevator up to the health ward. I struggle against Dean the whole way, even when he grips my arms so hard, my skin burns. Charlie said he’s going to show me what the injections were for. He’s going to give me one, I’m sure. He’s going to have people hold me still so I can’t run, and this time there won’t be any explosion to make them stop.

Ding.

The elevator door opens. Charlie leads the way out into a corridor. There’s no receptionist’s desk ahead, and no one in sight except two officials talking outside one of the doors. This must be a back entrance to the ward.

The guards straighten and salute Charlie as we approach. I recognize one of them: Colonel Parker, with his mustache thin and black. He’s the official who oversaw my physical training during Promise Elevation. He barely glances in my direction.

“Commander, sir, everything’s ready for you inside,” he says. “I also have an update on the status of OS, whenever you’re ready for it.”

“I can hear it now,” Charlie says.

I fidget with my hands, trying to slip free of my shackles, but it’s no use.

“I’ve just received word that the final inspections in Crust and Lower have been completed, and the ones in Mantle are near completion,” Parker says. “Also, the fugitive, Skylar, has arrived and is being transferred to cell block A.”

I let out a noise before I can stop myself. They’re putting her in a prison cell. They caught her.
How?

“Very good,” Charlie says, ignoring me. “We’ll speak more later. You two are dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

With another salute, Colonel Parker and other guard head down the corridor.

Charlie steps up to the door and presses his thumb into the lock-pad on the wall beside it. There’s a click, and the door slides open. He enters the room ahead of me.

I want to ask him about Skylar, but I shouldn’t. I can’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know, or I could jeopardize everyone else in the Alliance. He has four of us now. I have a feeling it won’t be long until he’s discovered the rest.

Through the doorway, the room is small and plain. There are cabinets and a sink against one wall, and a door ahead leading to the room beside us, which is separated from us by a wall made of glass. A monitor screen sits at the top of the glass, in the center of the wall.

The room beside us is much bigger. It has blinding white walls, an operating table, and blue lights and a monitor screen hanging from mechanical arms on the ceiling. Two nurses and one surgeon move around the operating table, the surgeon and one of the nurses completely blocking their patient from view.

“What is this?” I ask.

“You wanted to know what’s inside the injection. I’m going to show you.”

I glue my eyes to the operating table, waiting for the surgeon to move aside so I can see whom she’s operating on.

Thump thump
goes my heart.

“Watch the monitor,” Charlie says.

The screen above us switches on, showing the hazy image of a person’s face. The image slowly sharpens. My spleen feels like it rips in half.

Logan is wide awake, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead. A black strap keeps his head against the table, and his arms and legs are also strapped down, but he’s still struggling. His lips are stretched apart, held open by metal clamps. The gloved hand of the surgeon holds a thin white tube above his mouth. As I watch, the hand guides the tube down his throat.

“They’re hurting him!” I cry, wrenching against Dean’s grip. I want to fly through the glass; I need to make the surgeons stop. But Dean pulls me right back against him, an arm around my chest to hold me still.

“The procedure causes only mild discomfort,” Charlie says. “As long as he keeps still.”

The screen switches to an image of what can only be the inside of Logan’s throat—pink, fleshy, wet. There must be a camera at the end of the tube.

I look through the window at his full figure. The surgeon isn’t blocking his face anymore. The skin of Logan’s face has turned deathly pale, and his chest rises from the table like he’s convulsing. He must be choking.

This can’t go on. It has to stop. “Make them stop—please. I don’t need to see this—you can just tell me what was inside the injection. You can let him go.”

“No, I think it’s good for you to see.”

I want to find the sharpest piece of wire and tie it around Charlie’s neck, and pull and pull and pull until he suffocates.

Logan has stopped convulsing, but the rapid rise and fall of his chest tells me he’s breathing much too fast. His heart rate must be far above normal. If the surgeon doesn’t stop this soon, if his body keeps panicking, he could have a heart attack.

Charlie steps closer to me. I flinch away from him, but he grabs my chin firmly and lifts it so I’m forced to look back at the screen.

“Tell me what you see,” he says.

The screen shows the same fleshy pink material as before, forming a tube that must be Logan’s esophagus. The image zooms in further and further until I make out a minuscule gray object embedded in the tissue. It looks like a microchip small enough to fit inside an injection needle. It looks like something that doesn’t belong.

“Is it a tracker?” I ask.

Charlie releases my chin. His fingers were squeezing so tightly, I’m sure they left a mark. He smiles at me, a wide, vicious smile that makes me want to strangle him again.

“It’s an advanced weapon developed by a team of my best scientists and weapons technicians, including a friend of yours, Colonel Fred. It’s similar to a microchip. We call it a Stryker. Once injected through the trachea, the Stryker embeds itself into the gastrointestinal tract. It has no effect on the normal functions of the body. But each Stryker is programmed to respond to a remote signal, which triggers a chemical reaction inside the material, followed by an explosion that will impact the surrounding area within a two-mile radius.”

There’s a bomb inside Logan. There are bombs inside everyone who received this injection in the work camps—thousands and thousands of people.

“You’re going to kill all of them.” It’s not even a question.

“It’s unfortunate, but yes. It’s a calculated move. The Strykers are the primary weapon for the first stage of our attack against Marden’s fleet. According to our calculations, the fleet should arrive within three days’ time. Tomorrow, we’re transporting all the child workers back to the Surface. We’re telling them a neutralizing agent has been released up there, to decontaminate the air. We’ve decided to shut down the work camps indefinitely, but in reality they’ll be living in the city only until the fleet arrives.”

“And then what?” I ask. “You wait for the fleet to land, and once they’re all within a two-mile radius of the city, you can blast them all to bits before they kill everyone?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“What if the ships blow up the buildings from the sky first?”

“It’s not necessary for the child workers to be alive for us to activate the bombs.” Charlie’s eyes shine, not in a kind way.

The anger coursing through my veins makes me feel like my whole body is a bomb and I’m on the verge of exploding. “You could be placing normal explosives in the city to accomplish the same thing. You don’t have to kill all those people.”

“They are hardly useful to me anymore, now that the Core is self-sufficient. And you forget that Marden’s savages don’t know about our underground cities,” Charlie says just as calmly as he’s revealed everything else. “We’re hoping they will assume the slaughter of the child workers has been a slaughter of our entire civilization, and they will go back home without delving deeper. The deaths of the children could save us from a brutal, endless war. Don’t you see the good in that?”

I turn my head away, back to the window into the operating room. Logan is still on the table with the tube in his mouth; his chest is still rising and falling rapidly. He’s helpless and probably terrified.

“I’ve seen what you wanted,” I say. “Tell the surgeon to take the tube out.”

“Not yet,” Charlie says. “He’s going to stay like that a little longer.”

“He’s scared. His heart’s beating too fast. He’s going to
die
.”

“Maybe, maybe not. My guess is he’ll survive. But if he does, I’m putting him on the transport to the Surface in two days’ time, and I’m betting he won’t survive that expedition.”